


what it all comes down to

by alljuststars (allthelight)



Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Missing Scene, Set in United We Spy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25718080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/alljuststars
Summary: 'He doesn’t turn to her as she comes up next to him. “I understand why you’re angry,” he says, his voice oddly hoarse, “and you can continue to yell at me later, if you must. Right now I just need a minute to think.”The anger, which only an hour earlier had threatened to swallow her whole, has now disappeared. Instead, she feels very ashamed of her shouting and slamming of doors. It was immature of her, childish. Not the way to act in front of the kids. Not the way to act in front of her.“No, no I wasn’t coming to yell at you.” She stands awkwardly in her thin coat, hands shoved deep into her pockets. “I was coming to say that I’m sorry.”'It's a time of changes. A missing scene between Abby and Townsend after Catherine drops her bombshell in United We Spy.
Relationships: Abigail Cameron/Edward Townsend
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	what it all comes down to

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I know I always say that I don't know where my ideas come from but I *really* don't know where this one name from. I was writing another Townsend/Abby fic (and I was planning on writing another Zach/Cammie fic after that) and then thought that this would be fun and wrote it quite quickly. 
> 
> I didn't have access to the book whilst writing this so I hope that this is canon, and I hope you can forgive any minor mistakes.
> 
> There's probably fics out there that are like this one, but I haven't read any so I'm sorry if it's been done to death before. This is just my take on it and I hope you guys like some soft moments! I promise to try to write something nicer soon. I hope you enjoy!

Abby finds him outside. He’s standing staring at the moon, or at least he’s pretending to. More likely he’s staring at nothing. She’s been here enough to know what it’s like.

He senses her coming, because of course he does. She’s rather glad of it. If he hadn’t then she’s not sure she would be able to have the conversation that’s coming. Some things just should always _be_ , no matter what’s going on around them.

He doesn’t turn to her as she comes up next to him. “I understand why you’re angry,” he says, his voice oddly hoarse, “and you can continue to yell at me later, if you must. Right now I just need a minute to think.”

The anger, which only an hour earlier had threatened to swallow her whole, has now disappeared. Instead, she feels very ashamed of her shouting and slamming of doors. It was immature of her, childish. Not the way to act in front of the kids. Not the way to act in front of _her._

“No, no I wasn’t coming to yell at you.” She stands awkwardly in her thin coat, hands shoved deep into her pockets. “I was coming to say that I’m sorry.”

It surprises him, she can tell. His eyes slide to her of their own accord, and there is something familiar in them that gives her hope. But then it disappears and his eyes slide back to the moon, so white in the utter darkness of the night. There’s something so melancholy about it that she can’t understand.

“I was surprised,” she continues, apologies not being her strong suit. “And upset, and… yeah, surprised. I knew you’d had something with her in the past. I just didn’t know that, well _Zach_ was that something.”

“You and me both,” he barks out, seemingly without meaning to, looking paler than she has ever seen him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She waves away his apology, not needing it.

There must be something in her voice, because he turns to her and though he’s pale, his blue eyes are so intense she thinks he might fall over. “I didn’t know, Abigail,” he says, and his voice is so close to breaking she doesn’t know what to do. “I truly didn’t know.”

“I know,” she assures him, and finds that she means it. “It’s okay, I know. I should’ve known. It just a shock.”

Townsend nods, swallowing hard. “I thought she would have told me, isn’t that ridiculous? No matter what she is, I still thought she would have told me if she was pregnant.”

It hurts Abby’s heart to hear the man she knows, the man she loves, talk like this. Betrayal has aged him, sapped the strength from him. Normally so upright, so proud, he looks like a shadow of himself, unsteady and unsure.

“What would you have done?” She ventures cautiously, knowing she shouldn’t, but also knowing she’s never learned to keep her mouth shut, especially when there are important questions to be answered.

“The honourable thing. The right thing.” He runs his hand through his hair. “ _Something._ Oh, I don’t know. It’s all such a bloody mess.”

He’s not wrong there. It is all such a mess. A mess that’s came in the middle of a mess. Abby has to hand it to Catherine - she has impeccable timing.

“She once asked me if I would forgive her anything.” His voice is back to a monotone whisper, emotions being packed away into a little box as memories are unpacked from others. He is not a man accustomed to dealing with both at once. “She was just a CIA agent and I had no idea… she asked me that. I had no idea what she meant. Now, I wonder if she meant this. If she knew all along…”

The words aren’t for her, she just happens to be here. She knows it’s because it’s what she does, and he’s held her through enough of her nightmares for her to know that.

“There’s no telling with her,” she says softly. “You know that. As far as liars go she’s first class.”

“I loved her.” His voice cracks, and Abby knows this is something he’s never dared to admit to anybody, maybe not even himself. “What a bloody fool.”

She stays silent. Their history makes more sense to her now than it ever has before. She wonders what it cost him to admit to her that he loved her. The weight of it is something she is always aware of, but it feels heavier now. To ask a spy to love is something never done, but to be given their love… it should be treasured and cherished, knowing how hard it is to come by. It should never be wasted.

“We didn’t know she had a son until a few years ago.” He swallows, looks at her. “When I came back from Buenos Aries, I was told. Surveillance had spotted them together and it was the first time we knew of his existence at all. We had no documents – no birth certificates or registration of any kind – but it was all in the eyes, you see? They have the same eyes.”

Abby has often looked at Zach’s eyes and been struck by how similar they are to his mother’s, how impossibly dark and haunted they are for somebody so young. Looking at Zach, she feels an endless sympathy for him, but looking at Catherine, she feels she would very much like to claw them out of her head.

“Intelligence put his age at about fifteen – which would have meant that he was born years before I…” he trails off and she lets him. “And that was it. I didn’t ever suspect anything else. He was never really on our radar. We knew he was at Blackthorne, but as long as he stayed there then we didn’t care. We were more concerned with his mother.”

A comment pops into her head, but it’s neither the time nor the place. She feels awful for even thinking it and she says nothing for risk of saying wrong.

“Everything happened and he went to your school and I still didn’t even suspect. I barely even thought about it or what his true age might be.” He laughs but it’s more a bark, completely devoid of any humour. “I’m supposed to be a good operative, one of the best, and I couldn’t even see what’s right in front of my nose.”

None of them had. Now that she thinks of it the signs were all there. Him and Zach are entirely alike in their nature. They are all supposed to be trained operatives, and they had all failed to see it.

“You can’t blame yourself for that,” she says, putting a hand on his arm. “You could be the best spy in the world, and you still can’t always see what you aren’t looking for. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does,” he says heavily. “It does when it’s my son.”

She can’t help but inhale sharply at the words. Apart they are irrelevant, innocuous. Put them together and they change a whole lot of lives. There’s a certain cruelty in that, she thinks. The way two simple words can hurt a lot of people depending on where they are in a sentence. She’s felt the blow of bombs and bullets, but words have a way of hurting more.

“Had you…” she stops, bites her lip. Does she want to ask? Yes, she does. “Had you ever thought of kids?”

The answer won’t change anything, but there’s part of her that needs to know if he had once ever thought of that kind of life with the red-haired woman they currently have tied up in the living room, who is no doubt thriving on all the chaos she has caused. Abby’s often wondered what goes on inside that head of hers, if people are really people to her at all, or if they’re just toys to wind up and set clashing against one another. She’s often wondered if there’s something within Catherine that caused her to turn, something innate that could never be erased, or it’s simply circumstance, and she chose a path that Abby herself could have just as easily walked down.

“I don’t know.” Townsend’s voice brings her out of her head, but the dejection in it makes her want to crawl back in. “Yes, no. What kind of life would this be for a child?” She’s tempted to ask of the other kids (who are no longer kids but will always be kids to her) that are with them, the ones who have only known this life and the ones who were brought into it, but she doesn’t. How would that help anyone now? For once her smart mouth remains shut, and she hopes that somewhere out there her sister is proud.

He must see her face and the question on it. He sighs. “I never thought I’d have a family, Abigail. It just never seemed to be something I would have. I had a job to do and I was good at it. For so many years nothing else mattered except that.”

Some small, conceited part of her wants to know if she is what else matters now. If she is more important to him than this job. But she won’t ask him to answer that. That would be unfair, almost cruel. She would hate if he asked her a question like that.

“Where is he?” She asks instead, swallowing past the lump in her throat.

“I sent your niece to go and find him, but it seems like he doesn’t want to speak.” He barks a laugh again. “Which is just as well, I don’t have a clue what I’d say to him anyway.” She just stands there as he pinches the bridge of his nose, looking like a man at the end of his tether, “I should have known.”

“It’s not always as easy as that,” she tries. “It’s not so simple.”

It’s like he hasn’t heard. “I was so surprised when I heard she had a son. It’s not like I didn’t wonder who his father was, but it was just never important. Once upon a time I even thought it could be Solomon. Someone like that from her CIA days. I often wondered who the poor bastard was.” His eyes are so sad, it’s impossible to look into them. It’s like he’s not there at all. “I suppose now we know.”

“She didn’t tell you,” Abby trues again. “That’s not on you. She chose her life. The consequences are all her fault. You didn’t know.”

“It was my job to know, Abby!” He shouts, but it’s the use of her name and not anything else that she registers. _Abby._ He has called her that only once, and she has wished fervently she would never hear it again. Then, quieter, he says, “it was my job to know.”

It feels like heaving her breath stolen from out of her chest. It feels like someone has reached in with a fist and pulled her heart out. It feels like she is falling and there is no end to it. Desperately she tries to claw back some of the rationality she had when she came back into this conversation. She needs to steer them back to calm, familiar waters, otherwise they’ll be swept out to sea and who knows what will happen then?

“He’ll come around. Eventually he will.” There’s no need to name the _he_ she speaks about. His name might send Townsend over the edge, if he hasn’t fallen over already. “It’s just a shock to him. He’s spent eighteen years thinking one thing. It’ll take more than half an hour for him to get used to thinking the other.”

Cammie will bring him round. She’s a smart kid, mostly. She’ll do for him what Abby’s trying to do for his father. She’ll be an anchor for him until he gets his bearings, even if she doesn’t know she’s doing it exactly. The ignorance of youth.

“Eighteen years,” Townsend repeats. “Eighteen bloody years. I left him with her, let her drip feed her poison to him. Would you be able to get over that?”

 _Eighteen years_. There are life sentences shorter than that. But Zach’s young, and he’s a good kid, really. It’s unfortunate that he’s become a pawn in his mother’s game, but he’ll be able to see past it eventually. Abby has faith in that.

“She’s played all of us, and it sucks. It sucks extra for him right now. It won’t suck so much in a bit and then he’ll come around. You’ll see.”

She wants Townsend to scold her for her atrocious language, to make snarky comments like _this is why they call it English, Abigail._ She wants him to look at her the way he used to, with that mixture of amusement and frustration. She wants something, anything, to take the anguished look out of his eyes.

But there is no something, there is no anything. Instead there is only her. And she’s alright at comforting people, but she’s not the best. It was always something her sister excelled at, with her smooth voice and smooth hands that could soften any nightmare. Abby’s a firework, always has been, and she tries her best, but she’s always better at the burn.

She inhales deeply and summons the part of herself she’s tried to bury so far down. There’s work that needs to be doing, and as much as it hurts, it still needs to be done. So she needs to do what she’s been trying not to. The way she’s swallowing it, it may actually be a relief to let it go. He’ll thank her for it later.

“You need to snap out of this.”

Oh yes. That’s better.

Townsend’s eyes widen in surprise. It’s enough fuel to go on.

“It’s a shock, and it’s awful what she did, I’m not taking away from that. But right now a group of people are about to do something much worse, and she is one of the people who can help us stop them.”

He says nothing still, but colour starts to return to his cheeks, even in the moonlight. The relief almost threatens her anger, but luckily there is plenty of it to go around.

“If we don’t then you don’t get a chance to do anything different. You don’t get to make it up to Zach. But if we stop them then you do. You get to have those eighteen years and more with your son and you get to have that life where it’s not only the job that matters anymore.”

Eyes blurry and chest heaving, her breath escapes in little white clouds in the dark.

“When this is over, when we finish it, you can do whatever you want. You can have your revenge on her. Give me five minutes in a room alone and believe me, I’ll make her pay.”

There’s a twitch in his upper lip at that one, a hint of a smile. She takes a deep breath and continues on softer.

“He’s a good kid, and he’s a lot like you. We all know it. Without even realising it, he’ll take his lead from you. If you keep your head then he will, too. I’m not asking you to forget about it, I’m not asking you to pretend it never happened, but I’m just reminding you that there’s a lot riding on us getting this one right.”

The fate of the world, quite literally, rests in their hands of their little ragtag team, which alarmingly consists of five eighteen-year olds. It’s quite telling that Abby’s lived such a life that this fact doesn’t faze her as much as it should. Oddly, she has faith that they’ll do it. It seems like there won’t be any other way.

Townsend looks almost like his normal self, but his voice is anything but normal when he says, quite brokenly, “He’s my _son._ ”

“I know.” She nods, feeling her bottom lip tremble. She can’t cry. She just can’t. This isn’t about her. “I know he is.” The tears begin to slide down her cheeks, leaving a burning trail in their wake. He gives her a soft look and opens his arms and she steps into them without thinking. “I know.”

The height difference between them has always ensured that his arms feel like one of the safest places in the whole world, and tonight is no different. No matter what has happened, they still have this, and for a second she forgets. She forgets her anger at Catherine, who killed her friend and tortured her niece and had a son with the man she loves. She forgets the heavy weight on her back. It’s just the two of them in the whole world and for a moment she knows what peace feels like.

She tries not to cry because it’s not her place to do so, but she does, just a little. And not that she would ever say anything to him about it, but she thinks she feels some hot tears splash onto her head from where Townsend’s cheek is pressed against it. There’s something protected about this moment. When it passes, they shall never speak of it ever again.

“Alright,” he says, his warmth breath tickling her scalp in a good way. “We do as we always do. We finish it.”

She nods into his chest before she pulls away. Managing a smile, she says, “We do make a pretty good team.”

“That we do, Abigail. That we do.”

The world seems righted again, or as righted as it could ever be with them. She rests her head on his arm and they turn together to watch the moon. It doesn’t seem as sad as before.

“You’re a good guy.”

She feels him move his arm so it’s around her, holding her tightly to him. He looks down at her. “Why, was that compliment from you?”

“Don’t get used to it,” she warns. “One is all you get.”

He nods. “I’ll take it.”

And then he smiles, and she feels like they’re one step closer to home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're all safe and well!


End file.
